Error 'could net load config.json' after restoring containers (x86)

Recently I was forced to do a netinstall to upgrade from 7.18.1 to 7.20.1 after Package upgrade method failed on multiple attempts.

I'm running x86 RouterOS with 4GB of RAM and an SSD.

When I try to start my containers, I get 'could not load config.json'.

Before the upgrade I did settings backup and also used sftp to backup the files (~8GB) including the container directories with UUID type names.
After the upgrade to 7.20.1, I restored the settings and uploaded the files with sftp and rebooted.

I ran 'find' on the backup files on Linux to look for the file, but none of them contain 'config.json'

I created a new test container and looked inside its folder and couldn't find any 'config.json' file.

If this was only 1 or 2 containers, I'd just recreate them, but I have 12 of them and several of them were quite a pain to get configured correctly.

None of them will start (except new test container), they all refer to config.json not loading.

If I create a test container and then try to change the root dir, none of the UUID folders appear in the folder list.

Where is the config.json file? Is it a single file that all the containers share or separate for each container?

In the test container I created, there is no config.json in the root dir container store, so it must be somewhere else/shared.

Also, in Winbox, the UUID folders are properly listed as 'container store' folders.

EDIT: I see this in the release notes, but don’t see how to do it:

EDIT 2:

In version 7.20.1 you can view the config.json if you open the container config in Winbox and scroll all the way to the bottom. The config doesn’t appear immediately, it takes a few seconds to load. Also, it only appears on the containers I’ve recreated, not the ones that were restored from backup.

I suggest creating a ticket to the Support.

1 Like

it is the same problem I encountered.
Need to recreate the container. Also uncheck the button on “Check certificate”

1 Like

Same Issue with my mikrotik, after the upgrade to 7.20.1 I have the same issue with a pihole…
no solution found yet…

Yes, some containers need to config manually in order to make them work again.
Pihole may be easier

1 Like

I use

/container/repull X

That command will generate a:
”could not recreate: missing import data”
response…

I also got a response from Mikrotik support:
”Hello,
Please check the latest public RouterOS 7.21beta3 version; it should be fixed.”

I’ll have to check this latest option.

1 Like

That could be helpful in other situations, but not in this case. Thanks for sharing that though, I wasn’t aware of that.